Technology adventures at Trinity

Yesterday, Saturday 28th June, saw “An Adventure in Technology” come to Trinity Community Arts in Bristol (news passim), followed by an after-party at some city centre hostelry (although I missed the latter). It was wonderful to see the event so well supported by the local tech community: I spotted familiar faces from both the Bristol & Bath LUG and Chaostreff Bristol; Bristol Wireless also had a fairly large contingent there. I was also good to see our old friend Will Pollard from Exeter who was busy capturing the event on video.

However, it was not just geeks that made up the attendance. Other members of the human race were there, including Christine Zaba, a journalist who writes for the Grauniad and New Statesman on data protection issues and who held a discussion workshop on these during the morning session.

The day itself was a mixture of talks, demonstrations and chances to get one’s hands dirty and ranged from hybrid/electric vehicles via retro tech (supplied in large part by John Honniball) to motion capture with wi-fi and an introduction to demos (non-interactive audio-visual presentations run in real time on a computer), plus MythTV and homebrew kit, such as the Lego panning camera rig and plotter shown above. Secreted in plain view was the hardware swap shop, whose stock changed perceptibly over the day.

In all, a wonderful and fascinating day: Trinity’s Ryan even gave some us of Bristol Wireless folks a guided tour of their new training facilities upstairs. Many thanks to Shevek, all exhibitors and speakers, plus the folks at Trinity for a splendid day.

Finally, Bristol Wireless volunteer Andy Sabel took some event photos with his camera phone. Enjoy!